Novell axes direct commission

Vendor pledges to migrate last raft of direct accounts to partners and tweaks commission structure

Dan Veitkus: Sales people will have to work with a partner

In a final push to get closer to the channel, Novell has unveiled a commission structure that only rewards deals involving partners.

Dan Veitkus, general manager of partners for EMEA, said the software vendor is committed to handing over the last 20 to 25 per cent of direct accounts. These will be gradually migrated, and partners must be invol­ved in all new customer projects.

“[Salespeople] will not be paid unless they are working with a partner,” he said.

“This is something that a lot of vendors talk about doing, but I do not know that any other vendor actually does.”

Another sweetener is the Business Booster scheme, an initiative part funded by Novell. It was launched at the vendor’s recent Brain­Share event in Amsterdam, where 36 partners signed up.

Novell has also opened up its CRM system to Gold and Platinum VARs, with all leads directed to the channel. Six sales staff have been brought in across EMEA to help fuel sales of partners’ own professional services.

Veitkus said $2m (£1.4m) in deal registration rebates was paid to EMEA VARs in the 12 months to the end of March 2010. “We expect to double that this year,” he added.

The vendor’s drive to reorganise its channel led to the addition of 479 partners across EMEA last year, while a combined total of about $4.4m was ploughed into training and market development initiatives. New customer acquisitions reached 2,896, claimed Veitkus.

“We are getting very close to the critical mass and are now being very selective,” he said. “To gain market share, we will invest in training.”

Dave Simpson, commercial director at Gold partner Soft­cat, welcomed Novell’s plans as “very channel-frien­d­ly behaviour”. He said vendors’ channel initiatives were often undermined by commission structures. “Novell has a good group of people that we can work with.”